Sealing/pump-up device has recently become widespread, which is used upon puncture of a pneumatic tire so as to repair the punctured tire by a sealant without requiring replacement of the tire/rim assembly, and to pump-up for increasing the inner pressure of the tire to a prescribed pressure level that is designated depending upon the type and specification of tires.
This type of sealing/pump-up device is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-338476, and includes a sealant container having an interior space as a chamber for storing the sealant, and a chamber container arranged on the lower side of, and adjacent to, the sealant container and having an interior space as an air chamber. The sealant container and the chamber container each has a side wall of substantially bellows-like structure so as to be extendible and contractible in the height direction. The sealant container includes an outlet for the sealant, which is connected to a proximal end of a joint hose be joint hose has a distal end provided with an adapter, which can be connected to a tire valve.
With the sealing/pump-up device having the above-mentioned structure, after connecting the adapter of the joint hose to the valve of a punctured tire, the chamber container previously maintained in its contracted state is supplied with compressed air so that the chamber container is inflated to have an increased volume, with the result that the sealant container is contracted to have a reduced volume, thereby injecting the sealant from the sealant container into the joint hose under a pressure so that the sealant in supplied, through the joint hose and the adapter, into the inner space of the punctured tire.
It is important to ensure that the sealant as used in the sealing/pump-up device of the type described above is stored under a hermetically closed condition, since otherwise the sealant gradually undergoes degradation due to oxidization of the ingredients, evaporation of the volatile components, etch thereby lowering the sealing property with time. Therefore, this type of sealing/pump-up device is stored during the period from its production in a factory to the beginning of repair with respect to a punctured tire so that, for example, the outlet of the sealant container is tightly closed by a seal element (inner lid) made of aluminum foil or the like, and a cap (outer lid member) is secured, by a screw connection or the like, to the sealant container so as to cover the outlet from outside.
For repairing a tire with the sealing/pump-up device as described above, it is first of all necessary for the operator to remove the cap from the liquid container and remove the seal element from the liquid container, before connecting the joint hose to the outlet of the liquid container. This means that, before repairing the tire with the sealing/pump-up device, troublesome preparatory steps must be manually performed by an operator.
In order to facilitate the above-mentioned preparatory works, there has been proposed a sealing/pump-up device provided with a piercing tube member at the proximal end portion of the joint tube or at the container loading portion in the main body of the device. In this instance, when the joint hose is connected to the outlet of the liquid container or the liquid container is loaded onto the loading portion, the seal element is pierced by the piercing tube so as to communicate therethrough the interior space of the liquid container with the joint hose. However, when the piercing tube is pierced through the seal element for communicating the interior space of the liquid container with the joint hose, parts or fractions of the seal element are mixed into the sealant to cause clogging in a sealant path constituted by the piercing tube, joint hose, internal tubes, sealant feed pump, tire valve, etc., with the result that the sealant stored in the liquid container cannot be supplied to the interior of the tire.